This picture was taken over fifty years ago. It was part of a photo-shoot for the now defunct River Gods In Repose magazine, at that time one of the best-selling “glossies”. One terrible day, when the sun was blotted out and the sky was black, a photographer came calling at Old Ma Bittergall’s Grim Orphanage For Cherubic Tots, where I was a day pupil. Our whole class was taken in a charabanc to where Old Father Nile was sprawled, and we were told to disport ourselves upon him, and lark about, so long as we stayed perfectly still at the snapper’s command. I remember the river god’s breath stank of rotten fish. The cherubic tot to my left, sitting on the god’s shoulder, is my grate friend peason, who was uterly wet and a weed.